


A Yarn

by the_oscar_cat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Knitting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-26
Updated: 2011-05-26
Packaged: 2017-10-19 19:25:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/204399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_oscar_cat/pseuds/the_oscar_cat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I going to thank/blame <a href="http://apocalypsos.livejournal.com">apocalypsos</a> for setting up the kindling and then fanning the flames, <a href="http://medie.livejournal.com">medie</a> for setting loose the bunny, and <a href="http://sinnerforhire.livejournal.com">sinnerforhire</a>, <a href="http://mcee.livejournal.com">mcee</a> and <a href="http://helpwess.livejournal.com">helpwess</a> for cheering me on.</p><p>Huge thanks go to <a href="http://embroiderama.livejournal.com">embroiderama</a> for the beta. Any mistakes that can still be found are mine.</p><p>(Apologies to my housemate - I never managed to work in the phrase 'stealthy wrist-work'. Maybe next time.)</p>
    </blockquote>





	A Yarn

**Author's Note:**

> I going to thank/blame [apocalypsos](http://apocalypsos.livejournal.com) for setting up the kindling and then fanning the flames, [medie](http://medie.livejournal.com) for setting loose the bunny, and [sinnerforhire](http://sinnerforhire.livejournal.com), [mcee](http://mcee.livejournal.com) and [helpwess](http://helpwess.livejournal.com) for cheering me on.
> 
> Huge thanks go to [embroiderama](http://embroiderama.livejournal.com) for the beta. Any mistakes that can still be found are mine.
> 
> (Apologies to my housemate - I never managed to work in the phrase 'stealthy wrist-work'. Maybe next time.)

One day Sam found a pair of socks in his duffel bag.

He would tell you, they are the best socks he's ever owned. And, at first, he had no idea where they came from.

The thing was, having been apart for two years, Sam knew there were going to be changes. After all, life couldn't stay the same, even if you wanted it to, and hadn't he told Dean as much?

Dean hadn't said a word of course, just carried on digging through his back pack, slung - as ever - in the far corner of the room.

Looking back, it hadn't taken long for Sam to realize that Dean had much better socks than him. They were thick and soft, navy and black and dark charcoal grey, and there were several pairs that were long enough to turn over the cuffs of his boots. Sam put it down to a job lot or two, maybe picked up at a Goodwill or an old Army and Navy surplus store. He figured the gods or whatever must have been shining on Dean that day because from then on he kept his eye out and never managed to find any of his own.

The weird thing was that they never turned up in the laundry. And everything turned up in the laundry eventually. That was the point - when they got down the their last pair of really-pretty-damn-dirty-but-will-survive-one-more-day jeans, and the tee-shirts and shirts started to threaten to crawl-drag themselves around, everything got bagged up, and Dean cajoled, bugged, and then - usually - flat-out bribed Sam to lug them to the laundromat.

The socks were never there.

Eventually, because he actually started looking for them, he realized they turned up in the bathroom, or slung over a makeshift twine line, or, once, laid out on the back shelf of the Impala. Which is how he knew they were soft. Not that he snuck a feel while Dean was paying for their room, or anything.

And once knew that, he could spot the tell-tale signs that said they *had* been there, even if they weren't there now: wet drip lines that angled across the room, small damp balls of fuzz caught in the sink plughole.

Dean was *handwashing* his damn socks! Which should have been hilarious, but actually just made Sam feel vaguely jealous.

Another change was how much Dean would fidget sometimes. Man, there were days, slow days when all the guns were clean, the papers read, and all trails turned cold, that Dean would get that look, that clench in his jaw that in anyone else would have meant bouncing off the walls. Usually he'd grab his pack and take off for a couple of hours, all clipped-tones and 'I've got my phone' as he stepped over the salt lines and pulled the door closed.

Whatever (or who-ever? Sam didn't really know) he did, it seemed to help.

\--

One day Sam found a pair of socks in his duffel bag.

He had been bitching about being cold - like he hadn't spent winters in the northern states before, like two winters in California had turned him pussy or something. But seriously, cheap five packs of black cotton socks don't go far when it's fucking raining all the time and you're living in a series of dingy motel rooms, and heating is coin operated or some shit. Which right there, Dean realised, was a good reason for why he hadn’t thrown everything in the trash months ago.

It had been hard to find the time and the space to get them finished. Knitting them both at the same time helped, of course, but there was that point about halfway through when Dean was just sure they were never going to be done. Plus making 'em that way meant having to use circulars, which felt weird in his hands, and meant the two balls of yarn tended to tangle together if you weren't careful.

Of course there probably didn't actually need to be cables down the sides, but Dean had reasoned that straight flat stocking stitch was going to drive him nuts, and this way he could measure out his progress chunk by chunk, in short snatches of time between chasing vague visions, hunting, and the general day to day routines of their lives. Short snatches of time when Sam wasn't around to see him, obviously.

He hadn't fretted about the size. Much. Just added a couple of extra inches to the first sole before turning the heal, then ripped it back out and added another extra extra inch to allow for shrinking along with Sam's crazy mid-teen growth spurt. Boat-footed freak.

The yarn was the last of his stash, a kinda mottled, heathered navy blue that he'd sweet-talked the yarn shop owner into balling up for him. She had blushed and busied herself, and Dean had leaned against the counter, brushing the backs of his knuckles against skeins of cashmere and some weird angora mix that he knew felt great but would shed like a bastard, leaving him coughing and rasping like a cat with a fur ball. Ten minutes of idle small talk later, (yes he’d seen the Men Knits ‘zine and since he’d switched to Addi Turbo double-pointed-needles he’d never looked back – smooth, snag free and particularly useful for drawing protective sigils in salt), Dean had two center-pull balls in his back pack, and her phone number in his back pocket.

Obviously, knitting wasn't something he'd expected to learn. It wasn't exactly a standard demon hunting skill, but, as with most things, life threw him a curve ball.

The short version goes like this:

With Sam gone, and his dad still full of piss and anger, he'd been hunting alone off and on for a couple of months and ended up in Colorado on the trail of a Yuki-Onna, which had killed a number of experienced hikers. Through charm, creative use of the truth, and out and out lies, he's managed to borrow some winter survival gear for the hunt, but it also came with a short wiry guide, orange hair curling around the edge of her beanie, and thick tribal tattoos that disappeared underneath her cuffs. Though it was hard to admit, she probably saved his life when the Yuki-Onna's blizzard trapped them on a ridge for four days. And she taught him to knit with her own stash when the boredom got so bad Dean was tempted just to head out and get the snow-bitch-demon, storm or no storm. Dean could have thought of better things to do, but he had to accept that he just wasn't girl-like enough for her, and - as far as she was concerned - they weren't in anywhere near enough peril for her to switch sides. Nevertheless, she'd still kissed him when she waved him out of town a week later, her needles, a foot of scarf, and two skeins of weird-ass fuzzy hand-spun yarn in a brown paper bag on the backseat of the Impala.

He'd intended to throw it in the trunk and forget about it. But life was kinda dull on the road, on his own. And that's all he's saying.

Thing is, with poached wi-fi and Google, it turns out you can teach yourself anything.

The scarf had ended up driving him nuts with boredom. He *got* how the stitches worked but it was just the same thing over and over and it never seemed to get any bigger. And, after Colorado, Dean kept noticing yarn shops in the towns he passed through, like this veil-world-thing had been pulled back for him. He didn't actually go inside, at first. Just checked out the window late at night on his way home from a bar, his pockets thick with rolls of hustled cash, and it was nosing around the windows that made him realize that actually he could put this new, weird sort-of addiction thing to good, practical use.

Next time he met up with dad, John drove away with three pairs of socks and a beanie-hat hidden in the truck's passenger floorboard.

And for the record? It takes about three minutes for even little old yarn shop ladies to love him.


End file.
